Microsoft's SkyBox site live, branded My Phone? — It appears that Microsoft may have its SkyBox beta sign-up site up and running in preparation for a Mobile World Congress unveiling — except that it's not called SkyBox, it's called “My Phone” (even though the domain is getskybox.com — go figure).

Facebook Opens Status API, Say Goodbye to Twitter — Tonight Facebook has made a number of updates to the Facebook platform one of which is the opening of status updates. In order to get Facebook statuses, you no longer need to use a session ID to access statuses.

Opening Up Core Facebook Application Features to Platform — We're launching several new features for Facebook Platform today. These features open up access to the content and methods for sharing through several Facebook applications — including status, Notes, Links (what we used to call Posted Items) …

Google and Amazon to Put More Books on Cellphones — SAN FRANCISCO — More electronic books are coming to mobile phones. — In a move that could bolster the growing popularity of e-books, Google said Thursday that the 1.5 million public domain books it had scanned and made available free …

Eye-tracking studies: more than meets the eye — Imagine that you need a refresher on how to tie a tie. So, you decide to type [how to tie a tie] into the Google search box. Which of these results would you choose? — Where did your eyes go first when you saw the results page?

Marten Mickos to leave Sun in reorg — Marten Mickos, former MySQL chief executive and current senior vice president of Sun Microsystems' database group, is transitioning out of the company in a planned reorganization. — I reached Mickos this morning for confirmation: he is definitely leaving.

Job Losses: The Silicon Valley Perspective — Today's headlines trumpet the loss of 598,000 jobs last month — the worst in 34 years — but what does that mean for Silicon Valley, the home of technology? In order to get a sense of what's happening with venture-backed startups …

Trouble at Salesforce.com? — Resource Library: — Steve Cakebread, president and chief strategy officer at Salesforce.com, has resigned, and reports say two top vice presidents have also left the company. — Is there trouble in the house that Benioff built?

Steve Ballmer's Comments at Democratic Caucus Retreat — U.S. House of Representatives Democratic Caucus Retreat — Microsoft Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer — STEVE BALLMER: Well, I want to thank Jay, I want to thank the speaker and all of you for the opportunity to be here today and chat with you.

ESPN to ISPs: Pay for Your Customers to Play Video — For some sports fans, ESPN360, the online version of ESPN's television channel, is a cornucopia of more than 3,500 sporting events each year, viewable from the convenience of a computer. For others, it's a total bust. The only difference: their ISP.

Apple has NOT banned Facebook — How do these rumors get started? Or, more to the point, how do they get perpetuated? — Late Thursday, a site called tinycomb ("Hand-Picked Tech News") reported that Facebook had been banned “for life” from every Apple (AAPL) store in the United States …

Report: Pioneer Exiting TV Business, Spinning Off DVD — Tags: — HDTV, Pioneer — A report in the Nikkei Japanese business journal Friday claims that “Pioneer Corp. will pull the plug on its loss-ridden television business and shift its DVD player operations to a new venture with Sharp Corp …

CSS Animation — WebKit now supports explicit animations in CSS. As a counterpart to transitions, animations provide a way to declare repeating animated effects, with keyframes, completely in CSS. — With a recent nightly build, you can see the above animation in action.

Obama names Doerr, Phillips to economic board — Two Silicon Valley leaders have been appointed by President Obama to a 16-person committee that's charged with offering economic advice during what has become an unusually sharp and deep recession. — John Doerr, the billionaire venture capitalist …

Please Raise My Taxes — I'M the chief executive of a publicly traded company and, like my peers, I'm very highly paid. The difference between salaries like mine and those of average Americans creates a lot of tension, and I'd like to offer a suggestion. President Obama should celebrate our success …

Why Does Everyone Heart Boxee? — The buzz has been building for Boxee lately. Mainstream news outlets like The New York Times, BusinessWeek and NPR are getting hip to the little open-source media center that could quite possibly change the way you experience TV.

News Corp: We Spent $2.8 Billion Too Much on Dow Jones — A little more detail, via a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, on the $8.4 billion write-down announced by News Corp. yesterday: $2.8 billion of that charge is getting assigned to the company's $5.7 billion purchase of Dow Jones …

Vinod Khosla Moves Beyond Personal Wealth — It just might be official: Vinod Khosla isn't heading back to Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers after all. — When Khosla started up his own venture capital firm in 2004 to invest his personal wealth in information technology and clean technology companies …

The Dark Side of Overdrive — Faster is always better. Thanks to that simple philosophy, LCD pixel response times have been driven down to puny proportions in recent years. — Today, even the slowest panels are rated at 16ms or better and deliver adequate response for all but the most fanatical PC gamers.

Webware Radar: Magnolia founder blames self — Social-bookmarking service Magnolia is in deep trouble. Founder Larry Halff, who has been keeping users up-to-date on progress being made on restoring the company's database server, which suffered from file system corruption last week …

And the answer to the question is.... Okay, we had a little fun on twitter today, just because we could. … And we had some fun with it. My favorite guess was a Microsoft Repair Shop. A number of people guessed Apple. — I actually did do a little exploring at Apple when I started looking around …

Seagate: Ex-CEO Watkins Gets $5 Million Severance Deal — Seagate (STX) disclosed in an SEC filing this afternoon that former CEO Bill Watkins has resigned as a director as of February 4. The company also said it has reached a separation agreement with Watkins that will pay him $5,000,008 in cash …

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